When is my service due?
Servicing goes on time or mileage, whichever comes first, and your handbook has the interval for your car. We work to that, whichever of the two services you book.
Genuinely no idea where yours is? Tell us the registration and roughly what you do in it, and we will work it out with you.
Time or mileage, whichever comes first.
A service interval is set two ways at once: a number of months and a number of miles. Whichever you reach first is when the car is due. That catches out a lot of people who assume that low mileage means they can leave it, when the calendar has quietly ticked past the point that matters.
Your handbook gives the exact figures for your car, and we will always work to the manufacturer interval. If you cannot find it, or the history is thin on a used car, give us the reg and we will help you place it rather than sell you the bigger service by default.
Three things that decide it.
Servicing works on time or mileage, whichever arrives sooner — your handbook has the interval for your car. A car that barely leaves the driveway still needs servicing to the calendar, because oil degrades sitting still and condensation builds up in an engine that never gets properly hot. Low mileage is not the same as low wear.
Stop-start town driving never lets the engine reach full temperature, so moisture and acids stay in the oil instead of burning off. A car that only does the school run and the shops is working harder than the mileage suggests, and is a good candidate for an Interim in between.
Check the last stamp in your service book, or the service reminder on the dash if your car has one. If you genuinely have no idea — which is common on a used car with a thin history — tell us the registration and roughly what you do in it, and we will tell you what it needs rather than sell you the bigger one.
What skipping a service actually costs.
A service is not a legal requirement the way an MOT is. But leaving it has a cost, and it is rarely the cost people expect.
Wear builds up gradually and often out of sight, so a car can feel completely fine while something is quietly going wrong. A low oil level left unchecked is the classic example: cheap to top up, ruinous if it runs the engine dry.
Old oil, clogged filters and soft tyres all make the engine work harder, and that shows up at the pump. A serviced car is usually a cheaper car to run day to day.
A gap in the service history is one of the first things a buyer spots, and one of the quickest ways to knock money off the price. Keeping it up protects what the car is worth.
If your car is new or approved-used, skipping the manufacturer scheduled servicing can invalidate the warranty. Worth checking the terms before you let one slide.
Which of the two, and when.
As a rough guide, an Interim suits the point in between Fulls, especially on higher mileage or lots of short trips. A Full is the deeper of the two. Plenty of people alternate them. Either way we work to your manufacturer specification rather than a number we made up.
If your MOT falls around the same time, it is worth doing both together and adding the MOT for +£39.99 instead of £49.99 on its own.
All prices include VAT. MOTs are zero-rated, so there is no VAT on an MOT.